Gift Giving

I'll freely admit I have too much stuff. Like, WAY too much stuff. A more-than-slightly-troublesome excess. Here comes Christmas time and no doubt I'll get all kinds of cool new stuff.

Don't get me wrong, I like stuff. But along with the cool new stuff that will inevitably come my way (and for which I will be genuinely thankful!), I'd like to suggest an alternate kind of gift giving which I would like even more.

Kiva.org provides microloans to entrepreneurs around the world. I'd LOVE a gift certificate to Kiva. It's a gift that keeps on giving, because once the loan is paid back, the lender can re-loan that money to another entrepreneur. Microloans work. Microloans are distributivist. I love this idea. And even if you weren't planning to get me anything (gasp!), maybe there's someone else in your life who would appreciate something like this.

Similarly, World Vision's Catalog of Hope includes things like "seeds and a hoe" for a farmer in a poor part of the world. 

Now that's the real spirit of Christmas, isn't it?